Keeping motivated all year round

Now is the time many of us start thinking about New Year Resolutions.  According to a Neilson poll, planning fitness or weight related goals are most common ones we made last year and also the ones that we found hardest to keep past January.   

Keeping motivated all year round is not always easy.  A key reason we fail is that we are apparently overly ambitious or unrealistic in what we resolve to change.  I don’t necessarily agree.  For me the best motivator is to always have an ambitious goal committed to and preferably one that scares the pants off me.  The knowledge of needing to prepare and train for weeks in advance or risk failure is enough to get me out of my warm bed on a morning and keep my training plan on track.  I also have a habit of writing my goals somewhere I can see them regularly, it helps keep them at the front of my mind.

Even although I enjoy training, without a goal it lacks focus and becomes far too easy for me to skip a session.   I always set my goals early and next year I have signed up for two long distance triathlons.  As the first is in May I am already working on my base training and have a training plan in place to match my goals.   Committing to meeting up and training with others helps too as it is harder to let someone down, finding a coach that monitors your progress and makes you accountable is also a good way to keep on track.

Making progress can be frustrating at times particularly when gains are small or something does not quite go as planned.  But keep visualising your target, whether that is becoming a faster runner, pulling another notch in on your belt in or finishing a race that you never thought a year ago was possible for you to start, keep that goal in mind and it will keep you moving in the right direction throughout the year and avoid being just another failed January fad.

@lindatodd74

Coping with rude remarks when running

The other morning while out running, I received a few rude remarks from a group of boys.  I shrugged them off and ran on but later it got me thinking about how comments like that could affect people to the extent they may avoid running.  Lets face it being sensitive about our body image is fairly common and for some people so much of an issue, it puts them off exercising in public.  I am a member of a Women only Facebook group where training advice is shared as well as the forum acting as a support network. I asked a question in the Group to find out how many had experienced anything similar.  I got a huge response.  Incidents are occurring regularly and what is more it’s happening globally.  This situation means many women won’t run on their own at all now because of fear of verbal or physical abuse while others admit to always carrying weapons as well as their water bottles.

Researching this further on specific runner forums it is not only women that experience this, men do too and very often it is the men who are on the receiving end of physical abuse.  Since being beeped at, wolf-whistled and jeered at when we run outside is frequent, then we need to be prepared to handle it.  Shouting back or sticking two fingers up only fuels the situation and I found the consensus among runners is to ignore the comments, don’t react or show that it has affected you and try to avoid confrontation.  If you are nervous then run with a friend, join a running group or find running routes where there are likely to be lots of other runners around. 

I usually run on my own and in reasonably quiet areas but I have found that if you smile at people as you run towards them it is usually returned and may help disarm them if they are feeling less than warm towards you.  Granted that tactic would probably not have stopped the group that decided to comment on my Chris Hoy-like thighs the other day, but you can’t win them all.  

@lindatodd74